Nowadays, the study of biomolecules has become a popular research topic, and people pay more and more attention to the development and manufacture of biomolecular devices. Among various biomolecules, proteins are the main components of living organisms and also the basic substance that life activities rely on. Therefore, it is important to study three dimensional structures of protein molecules and their functions, in order to develop bioengineering. Protein molecules consist of polypeptides of amino acids which are linked together by covalent and non-covalent bonds to form three-dimensional structures with the lowest energy, stable molecular structures and specific physiological functions.
When the environment changed, protein molecules generally adjust their three dimensional structures to maintain energy balances and theirs physiological functions. In an irreversible case, protein molecules, which are subjected to physical or chemical treatment, will loss the regulation of three dimensional structures and theirs physiological functions, wherein this phenomenon is called “protein denaturation”. Therefore, if fundamental physiologic functions of protein molecules can be kept and a plurality of three dimensional structures of protein molecules can be obtained, it will be helpful to execute various experiments or applications for physiologic functions of protein molecules. For examples, detection biochips are always constructed by immobilizing specific three dimensional structures (such as α-helix or β-sheet) of proteins onto a detection area thereon, in order to provide effective detecting functions. Therefore, it is necessary to obtain proteins with desired three dimensional structures for a large scale of production application.
The conventional techniques of changing protein conformation generally change protein conformation by physical/chemical treatments, such as acidic solution, basic solution, urea solution, organic solvent, heavy metal, heat, pressure, ultraviolet light, ultrasound and/or X-ray etc. However, in the processes of these physical/chemical treatments, if the conditions of these treatments are not suitably controlled, protein molecules will be irreversibly denatured, and thus loss the regulations of three dimensional structures and theirs physiological functions. Moreover, for manufacture cost, it needs considerable cost of machines or solvents for using physical/chemical reagents which are also harmful to the environment or humans.
As a result, it is necessary to provide a method for changing conformation of globular proteins to solve the problems existing in the conventional technologies, as described above.